and you exhaust yourself over things whose aftermath you will come to loathe; the beasts live in this world the very same way. (1)

Yahya ibn Saʿid al-Qattan said, “I have never seen anyone like Misʿar; he was among the most reliable of people.”

Sufyan al-Thawri remarked, “Whenever we disagreed about something, we would go to Misʿar.”

Abu Usamah reported: “I heard Misʿar say, ‘This hadith study is diverting you from the remembrance of Allah and from the prayer; will you not desist?’”

I say: This is a matter on which the scholars differ: is the pursuit of knowledge better, or is it supererogatory prayer, Qur’an recitation, and remembrance? Whoever seeks knowledge sincerely for Allah’s sake and possesses a sound mind should give priority to knowledge—while still allotting himself a share of prayer and devotion. If you see someone exerting himself to obtain knowledge yet having no portion of acts that draw one near to Allah, he is a sluggish, paltry soul and is not truthful in his claim to a good intention. As for the one whose study of hadith and jurisprudence is driven by worldly ambition and egoistic desire, worship is better for him; in fact, preference between the two must be determined case by case. This is a general categorization—and, by Allah, I have scarcely met anyone truly sincere in seeking knowledge.

Let us leave all that aside, for in our day the collection of hadith, as it is commonly practiced, no longer belongs to the sphere of genuine learning. Rather, it has become a set of conventions: chasing elevated chains of transmission, receiving from a shaykh who understands nothing, reciting to a child who is playing and comprehends nothing, or to a crying infant, or to a jurist chatting with a youngster, or to another who is merely copying.

The best of them is preoccupied during the session with jotting down names or dozing off; and if the reader has any involvement at all, his merit goes no farther than reading whatever is in the booklet—whether the name is misread, the text garbled, or the report outright fabricated.

Thus, knowledge stands far removed from such people, and I can scarcely detect any practice alongside it; rather, I observe deplorable matters—may Allah grant us pardon.